mid-trip update

The day before I left for Manila, I wrote a post in my LJ about how I was a bit scared to see what my state of mind would be at this time. I’ve been in Manila for about 13 days, in which I’ve worked, hmmm, 10 I think? Yeah, it’s been a bit of a mind trip here. As well as dealing with a 13 hour time difference, I’m working round-the-clock hours. Although it’s not always fixed, which is right now really screwing up my circadian rhythm. Last week I worked 9pm-5am most of the time (8am-4pm EST), then had about 40 hours off, then was working 5am-1pm for a few days, then without a day off got changed to 2am-11am, which is going to be my shift for the next week. I liked the 9pm-5am shift the best so far. I’m finding with the 2am start I want to stay up for the rest of the day, but then I want to be social in the evening, so even if I do an early dinner I’m in bed for 8ish and that doesn’t give me all that much time to sleep. Lucky for me I have 2 days off after my next shift.

What else can I say. People here are super friendly. The hotel staff always says “Hello Ma’am” when I’m within 10 feet of them. The agents at work mostly call me “Boss” or “Ms Robin”. More and more they’re calling me just Robin though. The work is enjoyable, thought I’ve gotten my share of “WTF, REALLY?” questions. I guess that’s par for the course. I wonder how many of the agents actually have credit cards, considering Asia is, in my experience, largely a cash-based environment.

I’ve not really been out much, For the most part I’ve seen the inside of the hotel, malls and work. I’ve been trying to get out more, but usually after work I’m so wiped I just want to sleep. I’ve eaten more fast food in the last 2 weeks than I have in the last 2 years. The 2 main places to eat at work are Starbucks and McDonalds, neither of which I go to at home. The hotel food is good, but there’s a lot of deep fried stuff. Not really a whole lot of vegetarian options either.I found a really cute place in the plaza outside the hotel that has really yummy chicken, for way cheaper than hotel food. I’m quite aware that work’s paying for my food an all, but I’m starting to need some variety.

(wriiten 2 days later)

I feel like I’m becoming “that annoying traveller”. The one who’s been so many places, and feels that everything reminds them of something else. And talks about it at great lengths. Many elements of the city remind me of Bangkok, but today I saw bits that reminded me of a long distance route in Laos, and of small towns at the side of the road along the 101 in California.

OK, it’s almost 8pm and I’m exhausted. I’ve been up since 5. I’m trying to stay close to my work schedule on my days off, so I need to wake up around 3am, which means getting to bed pretty soon to get a decent night’s sleep. Today I went on a neat tour to “hidden valley” which had a lot of Korean tourists. Picked up some hommade coconut pie and liquor. Looking forward to trying both.

Postcard roll call

As I mentioned earlier, I am going to Manila in 11(!!) days. If you’d like a postcard please email me or comment (I’ll screen the post).

Squee!!!

Work Update

So, I’ve been at my job for just over a year now. I started as a temp the day after Halloween in 2010 and was hired full on in February 2011. A few months ago I started applying for higher up positions in the company. One was a temporary position in Manila, to do some training/floor mentoring for my work’s call centre there. I read the job description and I knew I had to apply. It sounded like such a neat job. They were looking for 6 people for the 3-6 weeks position. About 30 applied, in both the Toronto and Montreal offices. I did a phone interview, and while I felt I answered some questions well, I had that “oh, why did I say THAT?” feeling too. Another co worker, who I didn’t know very well but was also applying felt the same way.

Turns out, both of us got the position. So I’m going to Manila in early January Only 2 of us fro Montreal were selected, the other are from Toronto. It’s a huge achievement for me, I’ve never been sent anywhere for work, or been promoted before. So I’m really excited, I found out 2 days before taBURNak!, the Montreal Burning Man decompression event, so I was really feeding off the high of both of the events.

Not much else going on these days. I’m living on the Plateau now, after 7 years of living in NDG. I love the fact that I can walk to work in about 20 minutes, Newton’s here too, and we can actually sleep in the same room now. It helps that he (normally) doesn’t sleep on my head.

Parents are semi-moving to Puerto Vallarta for the winter. I’ll hopefully be going to visit them in March.

i think that’s about it,

What to do with old, unused contact lenses?

I’ve got a few pairs of (unused!) disposable contact lenses that haven’t been my prescription for 2+ years, and I have no idea what to do with them. Is there somewhere (preferably in Montreal) that donates/recycles/swaps them? I don’t want to throw them out since they might be useful to someone, and they only expire in 2014. They boxes have been opened. They’re 2 week Acuvue Advance for Astigmatism, if that helps.

Any help/tips would be greatly appreciated

Burning Man Writing exercise “Wheelbarrow”

Wheelbarrow (LJ)

WTF? Really? OK, so when I was telling someone at the Bruleurs meetup the other night about this little writing exercise, I mentioned one of the words I got was “wheelbarrow” and I had no idea what to do with it. So my friend said that he saw a burn barrel shaped like a wheelbarrow. So there you have it.

I didn’t say they were all going to be essay length.

Burning Man writing exercise “Glitter”

“Glitter” (LJ)

Raver Scabies. Burner Herpes. It gets everywhere, and it’s impossible to make it go away completely. And just when you think you’ve gotten rid of it all, 3 months later you’ll pull out the camping mat you used at the burn for when a friend stays over, only to realize that was the one thing that you forgot to de-glitter, and now your living room, sleeping bag, cat and friend are gifted with a sparkling.

Loose glitter makes a huge mess and is not permitted at Burning Man. However, the appropriately named Glitter Camp has a lotion-like concoction that can be applied to skin. My first year at the burn when I was doing a shift at the Centre Camp stage there was a guy who’d gotten glittered, and after hugging him I got hug-transmitted glitter. The next day Jody and I decided to get shined up, so off we went to Glitter Camp. I ended up with think red sparkles on my chest, and multi colours everywhere else. Then, for the first time, I biked around baring my chest. I guess the sparkles made me feel less self concious? I was a bit iffy, but Jody said “Really Robin? Don’t put your camelback back on, it’ll ruin the sparkles”. So off we went, with my camelback in my bike basket. I think that was the day we discovered the Tetris blocks, one of the reoccurring art pieces. That was the year they were out on the playa, and they could be climbed.

After about 24 hours of glitter, we decided that spreading glitterrific joy all over the camp was wearing a bit thin, so after attending Poly High Tea we decided to go to the Human Carcass Wash. Once I got to the front of the line I ended up getting a “pre-scrub”, which consisted of a few people trying to vigorously scratch the glitter off before going through the wash. Post wash, a lot of the glitter was gone, though I suspect a fair bit was recovered after spending a few more nights in a glitter infused sleeping bag. I wonder if the tent still has any remnants of glitter, 3 years later.

Burning Man writing exercise “Weather”

“Weather” (LJ)

The weather in Black Rock City can be vicious. My first year has terrible weather and playa conditions. Lots of wind and dust storms, and the playa was really difficult to bike on. Like falling off your thick tired mountain bike getting caught in sand traps. It didn’t help that the playa was bigger than normal that year. It was hard to get around, to say the least. At one point towards the end of the burn I saw a small twister blow an easy-up several feet in the air and across a few streets, not 20 feet from me. The weather was so bad on the Man burn night the fire conclave was cancelled, and the burn time got pushed back. Temple Burn night saw a huge storm, many people left before it burned. At least Exodus was a breeze that year! Year 2 the city was smaller and the playa easier to bike on. There was still a fair bit of dust storms happening. I do recall making out with a lovely person behind/under the Wedge art piece while waiting for the dust to clear

Last year was not a nice weather year. The day I got there (Friday before the gates opened) was pretty nice, but a bit chilly at night. But the next 3 days were COLD! Like, man, why didn’t a bring a winter jacket cold. And rainy. There was a fair bit of hiding in the van/tent while the storms hit. Ryan’s tower got knocked over, breaking the sign, fortunately no one was hurt. The bad weather also made for some nice cuddle time, which Ryan was a bit annoyed about, doing set up with 2 couples (Jody and I, Kay and Stella). At some point on Monday the gate had to be shut because the roads were too wet to drive on. Bikes got really muddy, and I ended up with more than one pair of “playa platforms” (when the dust turns into mud and cakes into layers at the bottom of your footwear). There was also a double rainbow that day, but we missed it. The rest of the week was generally pretty nice, and the rain had made the playa hard and easier to bike on.

This year had near perfect weather and playa conditions. The playa was was really hard and caked, making biking really easy, which was nice since the city felt so much bigger than the 2 previous years. The days were warm, with very little wind. I barely needed my goggles the entire time. The days were warm to hot, but generally not unbearably so. The first couple nights were so warm I barely needed a coat, though later on in the week the nights did get colder. But really, I don’t think we could have asked for better weather.

Burning Man writing exercise “Community”

Community (LJ)

I found this was the first year I felt enveloped in a micro community, rather than being responsible for it. I have always camped with theme camps. My first year at the burn was with Shadyvil, a San Francisco based camp that a friend of Jody’s was co-running. I knew exactly 3 people in the camp before showing on the playa, one just barely. Jody was doing a lot of infrastructure work at the camp, as well as his own project, The Church of Ceiling Cat. I was friendly with many people in the camp, but didn’t really get close to anyone. Meals were communal, other than for food and rest I didn’t really hang out a lot at camp. There was a lot of tension in the camp too, which didn’t help. I visited Poly Paradise a few times, going to the Poly High Tea really helped me sort out the issues I was having with a then-recent breakup, and I felt more supported by the attendants than my campmates, but then again I didn’t talk about things with them.

The next 2 years I camped with Midnight Poutine, a small, Montreal based food gifting camp. The first year was a mostly close knit group, most people knew at least 2 or 3 people. I was also part of the early arrival crew, along with 4 other people, including Jody. During the day we worked hard at setting up, at night we invited artists and other early arrival people for dinner. We served over 1000 poutines that first year, and burners loved us. People waited in line for over 30 minutes for yummy fries, sauce and gravy. The next year during set up we had people squealing with delight to discover we were back in business. That year was weird, the core group of MP early arrivals was mostly the same, but outside some other Montrealers that were friends the group was largely different. We acquired a sizeable French contingent, as well as a few people who remembered us from the year before and wanted in. I felt the group didn’t have the cohesion we had the year before. While MP was still as popular as before, and the lines were longer, the spirit wasn’t the same.

This year was radically different. With Midnight Poutine taking the year off and needing my space, I had to find somewhere new to camp. After considering a few options, I chose to camp with Poly Paradise, where I already knew a handful of people. I found a camp that had the infrastructure I lacked that would have made camping solo hard, and a welcoming group of people whose company I enjoyed. There was a common space where there was always someone to chat with. As I didn’t feel the stress or the tension that coated Shadyvil and MP. Ok, so some of that probably had to do with not having the responsibility of running a camp, or dating someone that was. Also, PP does a lot for the Burning Man community at large, like the Human Carcass wash, which is as much about honouring boundaries than getting clean, and the previously mentioned Poly High Tea. In general, this was a good fit for me.

Burning Man writing exercise “Peace”

Peace (facebook) – I’m going to cheat a bit and use the word “peaceful” a bit too.

Burning Man can be a hectic, crazy place. For 2 years I was one of the main people that helped set up and build Midnight Poutine, a food gifting camp. It was pretty stressful, and having a partner who was way more involved with the organization and runnings of the camp made things more chaotic. This year’s burn was a lot less stressful.

Wednesday night, my friend Stealth and I decided to go exploring. We started out at the temple, we sat down in the main tower and listened to the percussion play and watched other burners meditate(?) and just took in the atmosphere. With all the craziness that goes on at Burning Man at night, it was wonderful oasis. Later on, we biked out beyond the temple, into the deep playa. It was beautiful, it felt like the playa and starry sky went on for ever. Eventually we hit the trash fence and the spotlight near point 1 (the “top” of the hexagon). Definitely one of the most serene nights I’d ever spent at Burning Man.

Burning Man writing exercise “Sexuality”

Sexuality (Facebook)

In 2009, when Jody and I were discussing where to camp, I decided I didn’t want to be with a sexuality based camp. I felt I wouldn’t be comfortable because my perception was there would be a lot of sex going on within the camp, which was an environment I really didn’t want to put myself in. I find that people at the burn can be a bit hypersexed at times, and with 2 relationships going the idea of camping with people who (already) have sex on the brain just turned me off.

When I decided to camp with Poly Paradise this year, I was still feeling ambivalent about my choice. It was going to be the first time I was going to be camping without my former primary partner, and while I knew a few people in the camp, I was worried that being a relatively young, attractive and unpartnered woman would have me getting a bit too much unwanted attention.

That didn’t really end up being the case. I found people at PP to be extremely respectful of me. Yes, I did get a lot of attention, but it didn’t really bother me. While there were other girls at the camp would were (in my opinion) better looking and younger, many didn’t really interact with other campers, choosing to hang out in their private carports with friends. I’d like to think that people interacted with me because I seemed like an interesting person and not just because I was “the cute single girl in camp”. And for the few times when I did feel a bit uncomfortable, I felt able enough to assert my boundaries and say “no, thank you”, which I’m really proud to be able to do.